These are the 'user-desktop.svg' icons sent over by Rosie last week. These are the ones that were specified in the Unity Alt-tab designs and previously mocked up (in raster form): Rosie's raw SVG files finished with:

(Note that these were already queued for upload). Somebody with a good visual overview of the default interface (eg. probably Otto Greenslade) needs to review Rosie's designs here against the ones that Daniel (Planas Armangue)'s has just done for 'user-desktop' and make a decision about which one(s) to go with if it needs changing.

I would strongly advise against using actual blur in the icon. It usually doesn't have good results rendering real-world. In-fact, I've noticed there's a tendency in GNOME to just not render any object that is using any significant amount of blur.

Anders: Yes, 'warty-final-ubuntu.png' is the default rather than the current (user configured) wallpaper. I believe that the intent is that the desktop looks predictable‒I can ask Rosie/Otto to comment here if that's helpful? In an extreme case, a configured background, with a screenshot that looks like another application) might not serve its function as well.

Daneil (Planas Armangue): Good icons: I particularly like the idea of testing them against the noisy background in the preview. I'm not an icon designer, but I wonder if the design perhaps over-emphasises the weight of the Launcher (I normal running with maximised windows and so never see the Launcher—except when trying to hit the back-button in Firefox). With "Show Desktop" I'd think I'd tend to associate that with just being able to see the Top Bar and the Wallpaper.

Yes Anders, but I think we can not predict all the changes that users will do, so we have to focus on providing a good experience by default, so the icon should represent the default background with default unity configuration (top panel and launcher ).

Anders: If a user has never seen the bare post-login default desktop, we're going to be stuck with whatever icon :-) The use-case is so slight that it's probably best not to focus on it.

Daniel (Planas Armangue): An icon that presumes a left-hand Launcher is going to be less meaningful in Right-to-Left environments. Admittedly that's not entirely working in Unity at the moment, but it's more of a focus emphasis the consistent parts /of the default experience/ (background and top bar). This is where I think it's worth spending time focusing. It's more about giving a recognisable impression, than an exact match.

Daniel (Foré): I'm inclined to agree about avoiding pre-generated blur—I'd certainly personally prefer to see it being done at the point of render in cases where it is needed. (Far easy to add something back in, than try to remove it in the first place).

Sérgio: No, bug #841885 is not a dup. It's a result of this upload. Being too small is an issue everyone and current new icons do look lost within their cell at the smaller sizes.

It is , from my point-of-view, a "must" to express the desktop icon with a semi-maximised dash "on top" of the default wallpaper (in your case, just add a Dash to that already presented icon), that would make the icon easy to be perceived but all users (specially the new ones)